Could Illegal Immigration Solve Our Problems With Social Security And Medicare? Ehr…No.

by John Hawkins | April 14, 2010 11:29 am

Robert Reich[1] is making the argument that if we want to keep Medicare and Social Security solvent, all we need to do is give American citizenship to the illegals:

This is where immigration comes in. Most immigrants are young because the impoverished countries they come from are demographically the opposite of rich countries. Rather than aging populations, their populations are bursting with young people.

Yes, I know: There aren’t enough jobs right now even for Americans who want and need them. But once the American economy recovers, there will be. Take a long-term view and most new immigrants to the U.S. will be working for many decades.

Get it? One logical way to deal with the crisis of funding Social Security and Medicare is to have more workers per retiree, and the simplest way to do that is to allow more immigrants into the United States.

Immigration reform and entitlement reform have a lot to do with one another.

Now, you could probably make an argument that legal immigration might help shore up the tax base — a little — but, only if we completely revamp:  our system. Personally, I’d be all in favor of significantly increasing the number of immigrants we allow:  into this country if we:  go : for mostly educated, successful immigrants:  (scientists, engineers, surgeons, entrepreneurs, etc.) : and took a significantly greater percentage of them from more culturally similar countries, which would make it easier for American society to assimilate them.

America is currently the number one destination on planet earth and if we were smarter, we’d take advantage of it to make sure that we get the cream of the immigrant crop. Sure, we get some of those people now, but why not change the rules to make sure that the blue chippers are the average, not the exceptions?

Of course, the more successful American immigrants are and the more completely they assimilate, the less likely they are to vote Democrat:  –:  : so no matter how stupid, archaic, unfair, and riddled with red tape our immigration current system is, the Left will fight tooth and nail against any attempt to significantly improve it.

On the other hand, when it comes to illegal immigrants and taxes, they’re huge economic liabilities, not assets. How could they be otherwise? We live in a country where almost 50% of the legal citizens don’t pay income taxes. So how many illegals, most of whom hold menial jobs, would make enough money to pay in more in taxes than they take:  : out in benefits? Moreover, even if they made that kind of money, they’re going to cheat on their taxes at every opportunity. After all, if they were honest people, by definition, they wouldn’t be illegal immigrants in the first place.

Long story short, the solution to entitlement program woes isn’t making millions of people who aren’t going to have much money to tax in the first place into citizens.

Endnotes:
  1. Robert Reich: http://www.csmonitor.com/Money/Robert-Reich-s-Blog/2010/0411/Immigration-Could-it-solve-Social-Security-Medicare-woes

Source URL: https://rightwingnews.com/immigration/could-illegal-immigration-solve-our-problems-with-social-security-and-medicare-ehr-no/